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Bureaucrats’ Shadow Play

‘The White House will propose a 0.5 percent pay increase for civilian federal employees as part of its 2013 budget proposal… The proposal… differs from Republican plans supported by lawmakers and presidential candidates that would freeze basic pay rates for one more year. Some of those plans also call for denying within-grade raises. …But, “a permanent pay freeze is not an acceptable policy,” one of the senior administration officials said Friday. “While modest, a 0.5 percent increase reflects the belt-tightening we must do in these difficult times.”’

And we are stupidly supposed to think that Obama is actually reigning in the federal bureaucracy. He is not. This is a re-election ploy. This “small” pay increase will be made up with interest some time in the future.

And to boot it comes after decades in which these bureaucrats have been getting big increases every year, more than the private sector has been getting. And as the bureaucracy itself has been unnecessarily expanding, consuming more and more of our national wealth.

So Obama is simply issuing an IOU to federal workers, i.e., as soon as he can do it he is going to make up every concession that they have made or are being forced to make. This is how unions always work with the Democrat party.

Now look at this from the washingtopost.com piece:

‘The federal government employs roughly 2 million civilian federal employees, with about 85 percent living and working outside the Washington area. The federal sector added about 2,000 new jobs in December, according to employment statistics released Friday.’

So even as the economy sinks, we still are adding useless federal jobs at the rate of 24,000 a year to an already bloated bureaucracy of two million workers. This work force should be cut significantly.

Look at that number… 2 MILLION federal employees, most living around Washington, DC. So if you wonder why more and more young people are flocking not to New York City or Chicago or San Francisco for their futures, but to Washington, DC, wonder no more. This is how socialism works – put more and more people either directly or indirectly on the government dole and tax the rest economy heavily to pay for it.

Look at this from washingtonpost.com (italics added for emphasis):

‘The modest (0.5 percent) across-the-board pay jump would be the first increase for federal workers since before a two-year freeze began in late 2010. Raises for within-grade step increases and promotions have continued during the freeze.’

This italicized statement means that many federal employees have not even been affected. Because in the world of the government, there is usually a way around any pay freeze.

Overall, if you read between the lines, this story means that even after decades of massive growth in both the size and wages of the government bureaucracy to where federal government employees have up to twice the pay/benefit/pension package of the average private-sector worker, that this explosive growth is only being slowed just a tad and only temporarily, like an aircraft carrier reducing its speed by a few inches an hour.

Because this boat is still moving inexorably toward more, more, more for the bureaucrat class. It has never been actually reversed as, meanwhile, the private sector shrinks and wages are cut in private jobs that pay the taxes to support the bureaucrats in Washington.

Meanwhile a report on unemployment from cnn.com said:

‘While private businesses have been adding jobs consistently since March 2010, the government has been slashing payrolls. In December, private employers added 212,000 jobs, and the public sector cut 12,000 jobs.’

So while the federal government added 2,000, a total of 12,000 jobs were alleged to have been cut elsewhere in the public sector. But who knows where that 12,000 cut came from. It could have easily come from attrition and nobody would feel a thing.

But knowing how the bureaucracy works, it probably included many crucial cops and firefighters and teachers being fired in the “budget crisis” while millions of deadwood employees stay on the government payroll. That is a tactic that Democrats use to frighten people into paying more taxes, i.e., lay off crucial people first so that citizens become alarmed.

And even if 12,000 jobs were cut, that is nothing. There are 22.5 MILLION people in the public sector in federal, state and local jobs according to Stephen Moore at The Wall Street Journal. A drop of 12,000 jobs is nothing in public employment when the private sector has lost as many as 8 million jobs over the last few years.

See how they fake you out? This is the biggest con of the century.

Here is just one other example of many: In North Carolina, between December 2007 and April 2011, private-sector job losses were a whopping 8.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But public employment actually increased by 500 jobs, or .07%. This is astounding. See how the bureaucrats work? They never, ever, ever stop scheming.

In an analysis in Spring 2011 in TheWall Street Journal online edition called We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, not Makers, Stephen Moore explains why our nation is in such economic straits.

Moore says that the number of people working for government today on every level has increased dramatically since 1960 from 8.7 million to 22.5 million. Yet at the same time the number of people involved in wealth-creating manufacturing has actually declined from the 1960 level of 15 million to 11.5 million today.

So if you wonder why the middle class is disappearing, look no further. Because after a certain ideal point every increase of one person in the government means a loss of one, two or three jobs in the private sector as more and more critical wealth is drawn from the private economy to finance the public economy. Eventually the private sector collapses.

Here is another part of the report on December unemployment from cnn.com:

‘American employers stepped up their hiring in December (2011), bringing the unemployment rate down again. The economy added 200,000 jobs in the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, closing out the year with 1.6 million jobs gained in 2011. … Still, more than 13 million people remain unemployed in the United States, and 42.5% of them have been so for six months or more. Overall, the job market has a long way to go to fully recover from the financial crisis. The economy still needs to add about 6 million jobs to get back to 2008 employment levels.’

This all means that Obama is seeking re-election on abysmal numbers because we know that millions have given up looking for work and aren’t even counted. CNN also said that ‘some analysts caution that these (December) positions could be related to holiday hiring.’

‘Could be related’? This is bunk. They are absolutely related. As Nikitas3.com wrote in early December about the November employment figures:

‘Wait, however, and you will see the unemployment rate fall again when the January report comes out, because of December Christmas hiring. But you watch the February report. You will see a spike in unemployment in January when all the seasonal jobs disappear.’

According to aol.jobs.com, UPS alone – one single company – hired 55,000 seasonal workers.

Meanwhile the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press reported:

‘(Vermont Democrat US senator Bernie) Sanders gave $2,000 bonuses to 32 people on his personal staff, totaling $64,000. He also gave $2,000 bonuses to two staffers on the Senate health subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, which he chairs. (Vermont US congressman) Peter Welch, a Democrat, gave each of his 17 staffers a $2,000 bonus, totaling $34,000’

Look at the size of those staffs! And this is just one tiny corner of the federal government. No wonder there are 2 million workers in the federal bureaucracy…

In New York state far-left Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo had threatened to lay off up to 13,000 state workers in his first year in office. Ultimately he laid off zero. Because all the unions made minor “concessions” that will be made up as soon as Cuomo can cook the books.

New York state has 1.48 MILLION state workers, according to Moore.

But that doesn’t stop the New York state Democrat party and special interest groups from cheerleading Cuomo every step of the way with radio ads, many paid for by the public-employee unions themselves. Because Cuomo wants to be president, rest assured.

Cuomo is doing the same thing Obama is doing – making no genuine reforms in the public sector, making backdoor deals with the public-employee unions that ultimately will be made up with interest, while fooling the public into believing that he is doing a great job.

It is all a lie. Those 22.5 million government workers should be cut by 5 million just for starters in order to get back to the proportional level of the 1960s. And the rest of them should get major and permanent pay cuts.

Otherwise the tax levels to support this bureaucracy are going to continue to force employers from our shores, just as employers have fled New York state in the last decade to the tune of 400,000 jobs at the same time that New York state already had some of the highest taxes in the nation and now has a statewide sales tax of 8.25%.

Please visit my blog at www.nikitas3.com for more conservative insights. And enjoy the new Arts section!